Various language studies indicate that approximately 6,000 languages are spoken around the world. Their distribution throughout the five continents is, however, extremely irregular.

The African and Asian languages represent around 32 percent in each continent, while languages in the Americas represent 15 percent, and those in the Pacific region, 18 percent. Europe corresponds to only 3 percent of the world’s languages. 

Half of the world’s languages are concentrated in 8 states: Papua New Guinea (832), Indonesia (731), Nigeria (515), India (400), Mexico (295), Cameroon (286), Australia (268) and Brazil (234).

In spite of the large number of languages that exist and the need to preserve them, very few languages can actually be considered ‘thriving’. Globalisation may result in some communities being forced to abandon their languages. However, globalisation could also be an opportunity to more easily extend the use of the many different languages that exist on our planet.

According to UNESCO, around 50 percent of the world’s 6,000 languages are at risk of disappearing, 96 percent of all languages are spoken by only 4 percent of the world’s population, and more than 90 percent of the contents on the Internet can be reduced to a mere 12 languages.